This new Screen Arts and Cultures speaker series creates a space for film and media scholars and artists/practitioners to engage in dialogues about past and contemporary topics that influence media industries, audiences, and society at large. Aymar Jean Christian, Assistant Professor in the School of Communication Studies at Northwestern University, and Hollywood screenwriter and television writer LaToya Morgan will inaugurate the “Critical Conversations” series. They will explore the ways in which race and gender might influence access to Hollywood and how new media platforms have formed new spaces for narrating/screening multiple stories, people, and experiences.